The Mystics of Mile End (30 page)

Lev echoed his laugh, quietly, and then the two of them stared up at the sky in silence.

It was no wonder people once mistook the stars and planets for gods and goddesses, Alex thought. It wasn't just that they were bright and beautiful. It was that, looking up at them in the literal sense, you almost couldn't help but look up to them in the figurative sense, too. That was what he had done all his life—what he still did. He kept his hopes pinned on the stars because a message from them would be the most beautiful and incontrovertible, the most elegant and meaningful thing of all.

And if he was honest, wasn't that why Samara's strange letter had so appealed to him? It wasn't just that it was from her. It was that the message had fallen on him from up above—just like, come to think of it, every message she'd ever transmitted to him: the sign taped to her bedroom window, the wordless conversations passing through telephone wires overhead. Above was where meaning lay, if it lay anywhere; above was the source of the truest answers we could ever hope to find. Samara understood this. And whether she herself had climbed up Katz's tree to stash the letter in a tin can, or whether it had flown up there of its own accord—it didn't matter. What mattered was that she understood. It was because she had always understood, right from day one, that he'd fallen in love with her in the first place.

W
hile Alex was looking out at the night sky, Glassman was looking out at Katz's tree. The tin cans caught the starlight and reflected it back into his eyes at crazy angles, and this irritated him. The whole tree irritated him. Ragged lines, slings of sloppy string—a chaotic contraption meant to catch, what, a miracle? It offended his Misnagedish sensibilities, that German part of him that viewed reason and logic as the ultimate tools for interpreting Judaism and life in general.

This taste for reason had led him to excel at math as a boy—and, later, to take comfort in his wife's habit of working out logical proofs under her breath. When she talked to herself, she spoke in the language of truths and falsities, validities and invalidities, theorems and propositions and QEDs. For decades he had found this—more than their quiet walks together, more than their three-times-daily meals together, more even than their sporadic lovemaking—endlessly soothing.

Then came the day of his wife's last stroke. Just before she collapsed in the kitchen, he heard her murmur to herself:
If
p
then
q . . .
and not
p
entails
q
or not
q . . .
we derive
p
if and only if
. . . This was no different from her usual murmurs, and so he did not look up from his afternoon tea. But then she began to grow agitated, shaking her head violently, saying:
No, no, you cannot derive this, this would be invalid, I would dispute this . . .
And then she was sinking to the floor.

He rushed over to her, crouched down on the tiles, and stared with horror at her stuttering mouth, her fluttering eyelids. For a split second she took the extravagant step of looking him straight in the eye. She repeated, “I would dispute this!” Then she fell into a coma.

That phrase had haunted him ever since. As it echoed in his mind, he heard in it a valiant, almost heroic correctional gesture.
A final attempt to prove the invalidity of an argument he had been making for decades without even knowing it . . .

Now, sitting beside her unconscious body, Glassman had to grind his teeth to keep from crying out in pain. Desperate for a distraction, he looked out the window again. Katz's tree stared back at him. But this time, instead of catching on the tin cans, his attention snagged on those low-hanging branches. He remembered a spring day many years ago when he'd watched Samara pass beneath them.

She had been eight, maybe nine years old. A beautiful, curious little girl. The morning sun haloed her hair as she left her house and set out down the block for school, alone. As she passed beneath the branches of Katz's tree, she paused. After a long winter the branches were finally coming alive, little green buds opening stickily. She pulled a branch toward her. She touched the tips of a brand-new bud. She brought it right up to her lips and closed her eyes and kissed it. Then she released the branch—it went flying backward—and, just as she was opening her eyes again, it swung forward and slapped her in the face.

She jumped back, startled.

For years afterward Glassman saw her body veering (perhaps unconsciously) away from that tree anytime she walked down the street, as though not just her brain but her muscles had formed a grudge against it. Forever trying to expand his vocabulary, he'd wondered if this was what was meant by
muscle memory
.

And then, immediately after her bat mitzvah, as though she'd reached out and been slapped in the face by an invisible branch, she ran away from the very religious tradition that she had weeks earlier begged him to teach her. When he chased after her, she only shook her head and veered (perhaps unconsciously) away from him. She never tried to get near religion again.

But now, inexplicably, she
was
trying. And what a thing she was trying! The Tree of Life. Something extraordinary must have happened. She must have seen some sort of a sign—or thought she'd seen one. But as he knew, signs could be misleading, and attempting to do what she was doing on that basis was a terrible mistake. A mistake not unlike the one he'd made long ago, the one his wife had tried to dispute with her last conscious words. And so if only he could help Samara, then maybe his problem would be solved, maybe he'd be worthy of rest . . .

L
ev had barely taken two steps out of his house when he heard a voice calling to him from up above. Craning his neck in the morning light, he saw Glassman leaning out of his bedroom window and waving. “Lev!” he called. “Come up here,
boychick
! I want to talk to you.”

Lev sighed. He hadn't seen the old man in weeks, and yet he wasn't surprised to hear himself being summoned this way now. This was something Glassman had been doing for years—calling him into the house to pose a question, or tell a story, or ask after his favorite former pupil, Samara. Out of respect for his old teacher, he opened the front door—which Glassman never locked—and made his way up to the second floor.

“
Boychick
! So good it is to see you,” Glassman said. But Lev, standing in the doorway, couldn't help noticing that the old man wasn't even facing him; he was sitting on the bed, facing his unconscious wife. Glassman said, “Sit, sit!” and waved him into the chair by the desk.

“How are you, Mr. Glassman?”

“Fine, fine.”

“How's Mrs. Glassman?”

“She will also be fine, with the help of the Kadosh Baruch Hu.”

Lev said nothing. Mrs. Glassman was comatose. Her basic
bodily needs required a nurse who seemed to be forever clomping up and down the street to the Glassman house. She would obviously not be fine, with or without God's help. But he didn't have time to dwell on it.

“So,” the old man said matter-of-factly. “You will mind if I tell the story in Hebrew?”

“Um, what story?”

“Yankel's story! The story my wife's brother wrote—the one I promised to tell you!”

Lev's mind cast around wildly. Finally, he remembered that the old man had indeed promised to tell him such a story. He had promised it
ten years ago
. Now he was acting as if no time at all had elapsed, as if nothing could be more natural than for him to tell this story today.

“Well?” Glassman sounded impatient. “If I tell it in Hebrew, you will mind?”

“No,” Lev said. He did understand Hebrew—not perfectly, but well enough to get the gist of a story. It was Glassman who'd taught him, after all, all those long years ago. “But I—”

“Good,” Glassman cut in. “Because, you know, Yankeleh, he told the story in Hebrew, and this is how I remember it. These are the words I know by heart.” Rocking gently back and forth, he began to speak in a soft singsong voice. “In the beginning was the word. Only one word, that's all there was. Close your eyes and it will come to you. It will be the first word that comes to mind.”

Lev, leaning back in his chair, closed his eyes obediently. He cleared his mind and waited for the first word to make its presence known. But even before a single letter could pop into his head, the old man continued chanting.

“In the beginning was the word and the word was with the king,” Glassman said. “The king loved the word and so, to protect it, he planted it in the center of the royal garden and placed a flam
ing sword at its gate. He watered the word every day. With time, it grew into a beautiful tree, so tall it could be seen from anywhere in the kingdom. Rumors began to spread. It was said that the tree bore six hundred and thirteen fruit. Each fruit contained six hundred and thirteen seeds. Each seed contained a single word. What exactly a word was, nobody knew. Nobody in the kingdom had ever sung or spoken. This was a kingdom of silence.

“The tree was a delight to the eyes. The royal subjects longed to get close to it. Their fingers itched to pluck its fruit. Their mouths craved the taste of its words. But nobody ventured to make a move.

“Until one night, a daring man snuck into the garden all alone. Nobody knows how he did it, how he got past the flaming sword, though if you close your eyes now it will come to you. It will be the first thing that comes to mind.”

Once more, Lev waited with his eyes squeezed shut, this time for the daring man's method to spring to mind, but again Glassman's voice moved on without giving him time to think. As if, even though Glassman had seemed desperate for him to come and listen to this story, the old man wasn't really speaking to him at all.

“The daring man stood in the center of the garden. He plucked a fruit from the lowest branch of the tree. It was like no other fruit he had ever seen before. Dark, dark red, and soft as velvet. He cracked it open and its insides glittered with hundreds of seeds. He picked one out and placed it on his tongue. His eyes popped open.

“The pleasure was so intense that he dropped the fruit. He raced out of the garden with the single seed still in his mouth, guarding it carefully under his tongue as he ran.

“When he got home, he woke up his wife, fast asleep in bed. The fruit had stained his hands and lips and teeth, and she gasped at his appearance, then gasped again when he opened his mouth and out tumbled—a word.
Taste!
he told her, offering his mouth to hers.
Because that was the word he had been guarding. That was the first word anyone in the kingdom ever spoke.

“With fear in her eyes, the woman kissed her husband. He transferred the seed delicately from his mouth to hers. It rolled around on her tongue. Her eyes popped open.

“The couple stared at each other as if for the first time. They were naked; suddenly they understood this. That night, they tasted each other as they had never done before.”

Lev, blushing furiously, opened his eyes and inspected the old man's profile. But Glassman gave no sign of embarrassment. He was rocking quickly now, his voice speeding up to keep pace with his body.

“Over the next few days, the couple went crazy for the word.
Taste, taste, taste,
they told one another. They discovered that the word could mean many things. It could be said curiously, flatly, bossily, snobbily, seductively. They practiced saying it as a noun, as a verb, and finally as a command.
Taste, taste, taste!
And seven days later, they yielded to its bold demand.

“The couple snuck into the garden under cover of night. They told themselves what they were doing was for the good of the kingdom. They were not selfish people. They planned to share the gift of language with all the royal subjects. Awed by the beauty of the tree, they could only bring themselves to pluck a single fruit off its branches. But this fruit, with its hundreds of glistening seeds, was more than enough.

“The couple went from door to door, waking up all the royal subjects. The neighbors gasped at their appearances, then gasped again when they opened their mouths and out tumbled—words.
Table!
the daring man said, pointing at the coffee table in his neighbor's living room.
Glass!
the woman said, pointing at the glass of water that sat upon the table.
Cold!
they said together, shivering in the chilly night air.

“But they did not shiver long. Soon all the neighbors were inviting them in. The seeds were transferred from mouth to mouth, until all the royal subjects had tasted the words. Their eyelids fluttered. Their breath quickened with pleasure. Words! How they loved the words! How they lent sharpness to age-old experience! Had there ever been anything more delicious?

“The royal subjects were happier than they had ever been. And so they became greedy, craving ever more words, believing that the more words they had, the better they would be able to communicate with the people around them.

“They snuck into the garden under cover of night, robbing the tree of all its precious fruit and sinking their teeth into the velvet rinds. Words dribbled down their chins, dripped from their fingers. They carried the stolen goods home and passed the seeds from mouth to mouth.

“There spread throughout the kingdom thousands of new words. A word for every object and every experience under the sun. The crisp, supernatural light of autumn. The itchiness that overcomes the upper lip just before taking a sip of whiskey. Homesickness caused by an uncertainty of where home really is.

“The words were so precise that they could distinguish between even the subtlest shades of meaning. There was a word that meant
sadness of broken bicycles abandoned in the snow
. Another meant
sadness of never having learned to swim
. Still another meant
sadness of knowing the boy you like will never like you back
.

“But there were no general words, not for sadness or anything else. And because of this, the royal subjects could no longer speak to each other vaguely. Yet without vagueness, they realized, human relationships could not be sustained. A wife could no longer simply shrug her shoulders when her husband asked why she hadn't smiled in days. She could no longer say:
I'm not sure exactly, it's just this
sort of funny feeling I have.
She had to say:
It's because you're going bald,
or,
The truth is I never really loved you.